Book Review: Jesus Calling

Sarah Young's Jesus Calling 356 Devotions for Kids is a devotional that is supposed to be geared to young kids and tweens.  Having paged through the book I suspect the publisher is a bit off in their target range.  I think this book is better suited for tweens to teens.  I simply don't see a child who is 7 or 8 using this devotional effectively.

The devotional has an appearance that looks fun and inviting while possessing a vintage look at the same time.  It's a cute book, and that alone may inspire some kids to pick and up and use it.

This particular devotional book is ordered by the calendar year.  Each day has a heading followed by scripture.  The reflections are written as if Jesus is talking to your child.  I liked how the reflections were written in a way that makes Jesus feel like a good friend talking to you.  It makes the devotional and a relationship with Jesus something that feels approachable for kids.  The reflections are followed up with a "Read on your own" section that has more Bible verses to be looked up.  If you have a child who isn't very good at looking up scripture a year with this book will certainly help your child become very familiar with finding verses in their Bible.

This book is suitable for gift giving and has a dedication page.  Since the devotional starts on January first, it would make a nice Christmas present.

I think this is a nice devotional but I'm wouldn't recommend it for Catholic children given that many verses that are taken from Protestant translations of the Bible.  Of course, this devotional is published by a Christian publisher and not a Catholic one, so that doesn't surprise me and I can't fault the book for not being Catholic.  If I were looking for a devotional for a Catholic youth, I'd want to see something that followed the liturgical year and highlighted major feast days.

I was provided with a free review copy of this book from BookSneeze in exchange for my honest review.